by J. D. Barker
There was no explosion, just the thunder of boots and the jangle of weapons and gear on tactical officers. At least four, maybe six. He couldn’t see anything.
“One! Portside! Midway! Appears disabled!” Someone shouted.
“We’re coming out!” This shouted too, but from behind a closed door.
“Hands first!” This voice about ten feet away from Poole. “Slow! Show us your hands!”
A door crashed open. Someone thudded against the floor with a grunt. Another person dropped half a moment later.
Through all this, Poole saw nothing.
Boots stomped past him. Someone brushed against his right elbow, heading toward the back of the plane. More crashing doors behind him. Bathroom?
“Clear!”
“Clear!”
“Where is Sam Porter?!?”
No response.
“Where is Sam Porter!”
“He’s not on board.” Poole recognized the muffled voice of the plane’s pilot. In his mind’s eye, he pictured the man in the aisle of the plane, his face pressed to the carpet.
Someone tore the blindfold from Poole’s eyes, and he blinked against the harsh light pointing at his face from an LED mounted to the barrel of an MP510 assault rifle. The light fell to the side, and the tactical officer reached up and pulled the gag from Poole’s mouth.
“I’m Special Agent Frank Poole with the FBI.” Frank found it hard to talk. The gag had been tight, and the corners of his mouth were on fire. “Cut me loose.” His hands, arms, legs, and feet were zip-tied to the seat.
“Sergeant?” The man standing next to Poole was looking at one of the other officers standing back near the door for instruction.
That officer looked down at the pilot on the floor. He was holding him down with a boot on his back. “What the hell is going on here?”
“Let me up,” the pilot muttered into the carpet.
The officer lifted his foot and allowed the pilot to stand.
The pilot brushed dust from his pristinely pressed dark suit. “Detective Porter told us this man is a suspect in the 4MK investigation and ordered us to transport him back to Chicago. We were told law enforcement would be waiting to pick him up. I certainly don’t appreciate the harsh treatment, and you will be held responsible for any damage to this plane.”
Frank glared at him, fuming. “I told you—I’m a federal agent.”
“You don’t have ID. Detective Porter told us not to believe anything you said.” The pilot turned back to the sergeant. “The detective ordered us to restrain this man, said he was extremely dangerous. We did exactly as instructed. My phone is in the cockpit. I saved his text message if you want to read it.”
The sergeant went to retrieve the phone.
The man beside Poole had a knife out. He went to work on the zip ties. When free, Poole stormed off the plane, down the steps, where SAIC Hurless was waiting along with half a dozen other agents. They’d heard the entire exchange over the open communication line.
Hurless’s face went through a series of shades of red. Before he could say anything, Poole pulled the two folders from Camden Treatment Center from where he had hidden them under his shirt and handed them to his supervisor. “This is how we catch him.”
87
Clair
Day 6 • 2:38 AM
Moaning again.
Clair was half asleep when she heard the mayor next door. At first, the moaning was soft, more of a whimper, but he grew louder, more urgent.
Waking?
He screamed. A horrid, pain-ridden belt of a scream, enough to jerk Clair right out of whatever haze of sleep still lingered. She’d been lying in the corner of the room, her legs folded under her, her arms wrapped around her chest, and with that last scream, she found herself on her feet and back at the vent.
“Mayor Milton? What happened? Are you okay?”
Sobbing.
There was something about the sound of a grown man crying, even this man, who she absolutely abhorred, she found it hard to hate in that moment. “Barry?”
She knew his first name from the papers, but it sounded weird coming from her lips.
“She took my…”
“Took your what?”
More sobbing, nearly two minutes.
“My eye,” he finally said. “I think she took my eye. I…can’t tell for sure. It’s bandaged, but it hurts. Oh God, she must have…I need to check.”
“If there’s a bandage, you should leave it alone. I can’t imagine what that’s like, but who knows if she cleaned the wound, or gave you any kind of antibiotic. If you remove the bandage here, you risk exposing the wound to infection.”
“I need to know.”
Clair shivered. She was still horribly cold but not as bad as earlier. The fever was either breaking or at the very least pulling back. She was so thirsty. “Don’t touch it. Your hands aren’t clean.”
“I’ve got the tape off on one side. I’m just going to slip a finger under it. I won’t take the bandage off completely.” As he said these things between tears, he didn’t sound like a grown man but a small child. A little boy afraid of what might come next.
“You shouldn’t touch it.”
He didn’t tell her what he found. The renewed cries were enough.
88
Poole
Day 6 • 2:28 AM
“Tell me again,” Hurless said.
Frank continued to read, quickly flipping the pages of the files he stole from Porter back in Charleston. His finger skimmed over the text at a fevered pace as he took in every word. “We don’t have time for me to tell you again.”
“Tell me anyway.”
They were in the FBI communications truck, still at O’Hare Airport. Out of shot from the press cameras and microphones. Although the media had been held back from the tarmac, their equipment was just as good if not better than that of the Bureau. Even from a distance, they had the ability to capture video and sound, and Poole couldn’t risk the wrong information getting out, not now. Hurless understood that too. He’d ordered nearly everyone out of the truck so he and Poole could talk.
While continuing to read Porter’s file, Poole ran through everything that had happened in Charleston again.
When he finished, Hurless rubbed his chin and looked out one of the tinted windows at the plane. “Bishop has been in contact with our Chicago field office four times now. Always from a different number. He doesn’t stay on the line long enough for us to trace. He’s attempting to negotiate a surrender, but he doesn’t feel we can guarantee his safety, not after what happened at Metro. He said Porter is working with a partner, someone high up in law enforcement, but he doesn’t know who. Until he’s comfortable, Bishop won’t come in.”
“Do you believe him?”
Hurless shrugged. He looked as exhausted as Poole felt. “We need to bring them both in alive. Get them in custody, then sort this out. Find the mayor, the missing officers, and that detective from Metro, hopefully still alive.”
“What detective from Metro?”
“Clair Norton. She disappeared from Stroger Hospital about twenty-four hours ago.”
Poole was about to say he didn’t think Sam would ever hurt Clair, but he wasn’t sure anymore. His finger, still tracing the text as he read, stopped. “Porter was treated for significant psychological issues well beyond memory loss from that gunshot. We’ve got psychosis, even hallucinatory events.”
Hurless frowned. “There’s nothing like that in his Metro file.”
“There wasn’t anything like it in his Charleston PD file either. They’d never let him back on the force with problems like this.”
“It’s possible they didn’t have access. If the treatment at that place wasn’t court ordered or sponsored by Charleston PD, it would be considered private. Porter would have had to consent to share the records.”
“There are statements here from several members of the staff saying they caught Porter speaking to someone who wasn’t there. At
least half a dozen of them. When asked about it, he said he’d been talking to a woman about his age with shoulder-length brown hair and a southern accent—native to South Carolina. The physical description here is nearly identical to the one he gave me for Sarah Werner.” Poole looked up. “Any luck getting a photo of her?”
Hurless shook his head. “We got one shot. At the courthouse when she went in with Jane Doe down in New Orleans. We’ve confirmed that was the real Sarah Werner, the one you found dead in her apartment. We don’t have anything on the woman who had been with Porter.”
Poole considered this. “Do we have any proof she was real at all? Anything beyond his statements?” Before Hurless could answer, Poole found something else at the front of the thick folder. “What was Porter’s address when he lived in Charleston?”
Hurless took out his phone and dug through his case notes. When he found Porter’s address, he read it to Poole. Poole tapped the patient identification form with his index finger. “Then what’s this place?”
“Sir?”
This came from one of the techs seated at the communications equipment to their right.
“Yes?”
“The cell phone taken from Special Agent Poole at the house on 41st just went active. We have a location.”
“Where?”
89
Porter
Day 6 • 1:01 AM
Nearly two hours before the jet carrying Special Agent Frank Poole back to Chicago touched down, Porter stood in a small parking lot next to an auto parts store, staring at the wall, his hands balled into fists.
They’d worked fast at Talbot’s hangar. The moment the SUV stopped moving, three of Talbot’s employees snatched Poole from the car and pulled him into the plane. Porter was rushed through a door at the back of the hangar to a waiting Ford F150 driven by a man in his sixties with thin white hair under a tattered New York Yankees ball cap. The green bag went in the back, and the moment the plane exited the hangar, they pulled away at a crawl. No reason to draw attention. The driver of the F150 hadn’t said much, only grunted at Porter when he got in. With one eye on the flashing lights of the law enforcement vehicles racing across the tarmac, Porter tried to thank him. The man had nodded but didn’t offer a name. Probably for the best. The F150 passed through security and left the airport grounds without any fanfare. Porter’s driver had offered a half-assed wave at the guard manning the booth, then pulled through. The guard didn’t seem to notice Porter at all. His face was buried in a magazine. Across the street from the airport, they pulled into a Sheraton parking lot where they saddled up next to a dark blue BMW. Porter was given the keys. Porter peeled several bills off one of the cash bundles in his green bag and tried to pay the guy in the Yankees cap, but he waved it off without making eye contact.
“I’ve been well compensated.”
These were the only words he spoke to Porter before driving off in the opposite direction from the airport.
Using the key fob, Porter opened the trunk of the BMW and dropped the bag inside. He found a new burner phone on the passenger seat along with contact information for another team of pilots stationed at a small regional airport. He owed Emory. He also deeply regretted that she had become mixed up in all this. She was a good person and deserved better. As he started the car, he vowed to himself he’d find a way to make it up to her.
He was on the road a moment later, about the same time the Talbot jet with Poole inside reached altitude.
Twenty minutes after that, he was back in the center of Charleston. Eight minutes after that, he pulled into this lot, parked, and got out.
He’d spotted the discount auto parts store about the same time Poole’s cell phone rang earlier. He’d been ready to pull into this very lot when that phone rang, and he was damn glad he didn’t. He wanted to trust Poole, he really did, but that ring proved that he could not.
Although it was the auto parts store that drew his attention, it was the gas station across the street, the motel next to that gas station, that really pulled him in—rundown, falling apart, painted yellow with lime green trim. He recognized the scene immediately, and Porter tried to convince himself he recognized it from the description in the diary, but he knew that was only partly true. He knew this place. He’d been here before.
Porter pulled into this lot across the street from the motel because parking there felt right, felt familiar. He knew the moment he slipped the car into park and stepped out into the night air that he’d stood in that very spot before.
The writing was literally on the wall.
His hands were still balled in fists as he stared up at the side of the auto parts store, at the words spray-painted on the brick in red:
We bled for you, Sam.
He heard these words in his head. He couldn’t explain why or how, but it was like someone was reading the five words to him. The voice wasn’t his own, and it wasn’t Bishop’s. He didn’t recognize the voice, but he knew the voice.
Porter stared up at the words on the wall.
We bled for you, Sam.
He had no real recollection of the motel across the street, not really. He’d driven by hundreds of time on patrol, but he couldn’t recall a single time he was actually called there. He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to picture one of the rooms or the lobby or even an ice or soda machine, and he came up blank. His only memories of an interior room at that place came from what he read in the diary. Bishop’s encounter with Bernie. The aftermath of that encounter.
Porter hadn’t been there for that, had he?
He wanted to say no, but the truth was his memories of that time were so muddled in his brain he couldn’t be sure. Until a few hours ago, he thought he remembered the moments leading up to when he was shot with vivid detail. Poole had shown him that that detail was a lie.
He could picture the white van across the street. He could even see Stocks and Welderman pulling up next to that white van in their Chevy Malibu, a young Anson Bishop getting out.
Or was it Weasel?
Or Tegan?
Kristina?
Libby?
Even Vincent Weidner.
He could see it if he closed his eyes, and that frightened him a little bit. That white van might be Hillburn’s. How many times had he ridden in that thing? How many times had he driven it? Hell, how many times had he borrowed it?
About as many times as Hillburn borrowed your coat, his mind shot back. That old navy blue trench you loved so much.
He tried not to think about that. No, not that.
She was standing across the street. Porter wasn’t sure how long she had been there. Just standing there, watching him from the motel parking lot. Her dark hair fluttered around her shoulders, caught in the night air. She wore a coat of her own, long and black, her hands in the pockets. She stood perfectly still, watching him as cars zipped between heading north and south. If she felt any emotion at the sight of him, her face didn’t betray her. Her solemn look was stoic, statuesque.
Sarah Werner.
Or, at least, the woman he knew as Sarah Werner.
Bishop’s mother.
A killer.
A liar.
Ghostlike in that silent breeze.
She returned his stare but only for a moment, then got into the same silver Lexus she had been driving in Chicago and pulled out of the motel parking lot, out into the late-night traffic.
Sam scrambled back into his borrowed BMW and somehow managed to keep her in sight, three, sometimes four cars between them. He couldn’t tell if she was alone. He dared not get closer.
90
Porter
Day 6 • 1:27 AM
Porter drove with the windows open. This time of year in Chicago, that would have been impossible, but the temperature in South Carolina hovered somewhere in the sixties, and that cool air rushing over him kept him alert, helped him feel alive.
He needed to feel alive, because something about this moment did not. He couldn’t put his finger on it, a
nd he’d spent the last twenty minutes thinking about it. He felt present, yet he didn’t. If a man could step out of his own body and watch himself, then that was what Porter was doing right now. He was an observer, a bystander as the film reel of his life ticked forward.
Sarah Werner’s silver Lexus hadn’t violated the speed limit. In fact, she remained one or two miles per hour under. She used her turn signal whenever necessary, and the few times she came upon a yellow traffic light, she stopped rather than increase speed and continue on. About ten minutes after pulling out onto the highway, Porter had given up all pretenses of a clandestine tail. Sarah knew he was following her. She had all but shot off a flare to encourage him. Had they remained in the city, he might have had a chance at remaining hidden, but they weren’t in the city, not anymore. He’d followed her onto I-26, then 78, then a series of smaller roads until he gave up trying to keep track. With each turn, the number of cars around them dwindled and now, as he followed her down a narrow two-lane road through open fields, they were utterly alone.
Much like the parking lot next to the auto parts store, there was a familiarity to this drive, and again Porter told himself this was because Bishop had detailed it in the diary. And much like before, telling himself this didn’t quash the feeling that he had made this drive before. When two grain silos rolled by outside his passenger window, both painted green and tainted with rust, Porter told himself that he had never seen them before, yet he knew he had. The little voice in the back of his mind reminded him that there was no mention of grain silos in Bishop’s diary.
Sarah’s blinker came on. Left turn from the blacktop to a gravel road surrounded by weeds as tall as Porter. At one point, this might have been a cornfield or maybe tobacco or wheat. Mother Nature evicted the crops in lieu of her own a long time ago. Even the stars seemed to have vanished from this place. The sky nothing more than a tapestry of black, and Porter knew if he found the courage to turn off his headlights, he’d be plunged into a darkness thick enough to taste.